


A Glimmer in Alaska

by silbecoo



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Canon, F/M, Original Character - Freeform, Post Finale, i just want jesse to be happy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2015-09-25
Packaged: 2018-04-18 06:40:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4695965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silbecoo/pseuds/silbecoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jesse has a new life in Alaska. It's quiet, the self imposed loneliness that the grouchy villagers are happy to let him wallow in. Except one. She's soft and warm and has eyes that flash when she's happy, poking and prodding him in the most irritating fashion. (mostly canon, post-series-finale)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I binged the entire series in like... a very short amount of time, and I feel soo... deflated now that I don't have it to watch anymore. This is just me trying to give Jesse some kind of happy ending. Post-finale... canonical. Enjoy. (comments are the best and they are really encouraging... this will be multi-chapter if I buckle down)**

The sky here isn't like anything he's ever seen before. Some days he spends hours sitting on his sagging porch, just watching the clouds trail across the pale blue. It's like faded denim, washed so many times the cotton threads are soft and coming apart at the seams. He wishes he could reach up and feel the softness high above him, trail his fingers along the worn fabric of the sky. He's just beginning to feel again, and there are times when it's so painful he can't pull himself out of bed, not even for the beautiful view.

He still smokes, fat little hand rolled cigarettes filled with the tobacco from the mercantile. It's all he can get way out here without spending a fortune. The paper is cheap, and it smells faintly of chemicals when it burns. He doesn't mind, far worse fumes have invaded his nostrils. He wonders on occasion if in some kind of grand irony he'll be diagnosed with lung cancer when he's an old man. His mask came off far too often for his pink lungs to be totally unscathed, and sometimes in the winter he gets a cough he just can't shake.

He once thought about coming up here and just walking off into the wilderness. He wanted to let the universe decide his fate, to be put on trial in the cold woods with the wild creatures and merciless exposure. If he wound up bear chow, so be it. His sins were numerable, and the fate seemed deserving. It was the lie he told himself while driving north, bags packed in the back seat, straps of hundred dollar bills lining the sweater hanging heavy on his shoulders. He was too much of a coward to actually go through with it.

He drove to the coast, following the directions posted along the side of the road until he came to a tiny fishing village. The people there had looked at him strangely when he rolled up, mostly gruff men with downward turned mouths. They stared at him unblinkingly. He had practice with this kind of thing. It was a game men played, asserting dominance over newcomers. He caved, knowing he could never win it here, not in this place. He'd killed, viciously, heartlessly, but none of them knew that. To them he just looked like some college dropout with more than a few rough years under his belt.

Thankfully, money is the universal language of mankind, and for a few crisp bills the men were able to point him in the direction of a cabin. It's empty and in disrepair, the once bright orange "For Sale" sign hanging limply on the fence post, faded to the light yellow of tobacco stained teeth. It's his now, barely two words spoken over the deal, a firm handshake and a shaky signature.

There's a pile of wood beside his porch, round hunks of cedar and pine. It doesn't really hold his attention much these days. He's been making furniture out of the fragrant material for months, first little stools and chests, and finally a beautiful set of rockers on his porch advertising the skill he's developing. He's more interested now in the great round growths on the trunks of trees, the cancerous lesions in otherwise perfect specimens. When you cut into them, the grain dips and curls like smoke on the wind, lines flowing in and out of each other.

The burls are hard to find. The man at the saw mill on the edge of town shrugs when he asks about getting them. He doesn't bother with the damaged trees, not that he runs across many of them. It's a small operation, milling logs into lumber for the town's needs.

Jesse shells out a stack of bills for a used chainsaw and goes hiking, hoping to stumble upon one he can get himself. The land his cabin sits on is several acres of forest, and he takes off without rhyme or reason, walking in circles some days until nearly dark. He's found several small ones on branches. Shimmying up the trunks with the saw hanging beneath him is difficult, but he manages, hacking off the diseased limbs and finishing the work on the ground. The day he finds the first unattainably large one is the same day she knocks on his door.

The people in the village occasionally come by to silently watch him as he works outside. But this is different, the sun already dipping below the horizon when he hears the knock. He's already thinking about how he could possibly harvest the giant burl swelling out from an ancient cedar, but the noise pulls him out of his insular thoughts. A woman with coal black hair and deep brown eyes stands framed in his doorway, a kind expression on her smiling face. "I need you to make me a hope chest."

That's it, no preamble, no niceties. Her hand shoots out, grabbing his wrist and turning his palm up. "I'll pay you two hundred dollars, take your time. I want the quality I can see in your other pieces."

The twenties in his hand are soft, like she's fished some of them out of her dryer's lint trap. They're stacked unevenly in his hand, and he glares at her silently, shoving the money back at her. "I don't do that."

She narrows her eyes at him. They're not brown like he first thought, but some honeyed mixture of gold and dark green. It's more clear to him in the soft glow of the bare bulb hanging over them. Tucking her hands into her pockets, she rocks back on her heels, shrugging. "Well, you have my money. I don't really see what the big deal is. This is clearly a hobby of yours."

"I don't need your money." He takes one step out the door, angrily yanking one of her hands from the shallow pocket of her jacket. The bills press down into her palm, and he curls her fingers around the cash, until he feels her own muscles take back control. She sighs, shoving the money back down into her jacket.

"Why won't you do it?" Her tone is not accusatory, but tinged with frank curiosity. "I've never known anyone to turn down cold hard cash. What's your story? Why are you here?"

It's the last thing Jesse ever expected anyone to ask him, here, in this place. It leaves him slack jawed, painful memories rushing over him in an unexpected wave. He snarls at her. "None of your god damned business."

She shrugs, unaffected by the venom in his words. "Do you want to know why  _I'm_  here?"

Before he can shake his head no, she smiles again. It's blinding, the light behind her fading into comparative darkness. He blinks, opening his mouth to tell her to leave.

"I came to Alaska to find a husband. Sure, the man to woman ratio isn't as crazy as people make it out to be, not in the big cities… but out in places like this.. Well, hell it's like five to one, and some mountain man isn't going to care that I'm a little soft around the edges." She pokes at her thigh somewhat self-consciously, the rattling commentary tapering off. "So clearly, I'm gonna need a hope chest."

He can't help but be drawn into her little bubble, the happy expression sparkling in her eyes is too tempting to deny. He shuts the door behind him, arms crossing over his chest. "I don't know what that is.. so… you're out of luck."

She laughs, and it's a sound he hasn't heard in so long that he feels tears gathering in the back of his throat. Coughing, he leans on the doorjamb to get a better look at her. The silken waves of her hair fall almost to her waist, wavy and just a bit unruly, and her skin is tawny and glowing under the light of his porch. She doesn't look like any of the villagers, the lean and taciturn people that work on the shore. She's soft and round, and probably a little shorter than everyone she meets. The apples of her cheeks are red and sweet when she smiles, which seems to be all the time. She's not like the people here. They stare at him with their lips pursed, only grunting when he's in their way. She's chatty and bubbly. She doesn't belong.

"Oh, no? It's just a rectangular cedar chest, you know, one that fits at the end of a full sized bed. People call them hope chests because you're supposed to fill them with things you hope to use in the future, like home stuff to use after you're married… It's kind of antiquated, but I like it."

Jesse doesn't have a response for this. There was a chest much like what she describes in his childhood bedroom, full of drawings and sketches, and even the occasional stuffed animal. Every day he breathes a sigh of relief for the distance between him and his family, for the chasm that was there before he even left. It's probably the only reason they survived his foray into madness.

She watches him fade out, his eyes unfocused and a little glassy. His adam's apple bobs gently, and he looks up at her. "A hope chest, huh?"

"Yup. So?"

It might be nice to work on something with a purpose for a change. He has to keep himself occupied anyway, might as well be productive about it. "I think I could do that, but it might take me a while… to find the material and everything."

She hops up and down with excitement, lunging forward to capture him in a miniature version of a bear hug. She squeezes briefly at his shoulders before pulling away and digging the money back out. He clears his throat. "Why do you want this thing anyway? Couldn't you just… buy more stuff with that money and not worry about this box to put it all in?"

Her eyes get a little sad, dropping down to stare at the faded bills. "My grandfather used to say, 'If you want something good and pure, you have to go through all the motions, beginning to end, no shortcuts.'" She blows out a tired breath, cheerful countenance falling away. "I haven't done that in the past… and the results were not so good."

Jesse grunts, picking up the habit from the natives. She's holding the money in front of her like an offering, this time deciding to wait until he actually takes it from her. "I don't want your money."

Her face falls, and he's quick to explain. "It's just… I'm not a carpenter, so… I don't want to charge you for something until it's done. It might be shitty."

Her button nose wrinkles in displeasure at his comment. Shoving the money back in her pocket, she says, "Well… ok. I guess I'll stop by in a couple weeks to see how far along you are."

He nods, putting his hand on the cold metal of the door knob. She takes her cue to leave, walking carefully down the rickety set of steps he's rigged up to his porch. He watches her make her way down to the end of his drive, hiking one leg up to climb into her giant pickup. She waves at him as she puts the thing into reverse, the pungent exhaust cutting through the clear cold air just as her taillights fade out of view.


	2. Chapter 2

Jesse dreams of New Mexico sometimes, weird lucid dreams walking along in the dry heat. He never sees a soul in these visions, just long dusty dirt roads winding through the painted mesas, a clear turquoise sky sheltering the scenery. He's always in the desert. The sun burns through the atmosphere to blaze down on him as he doggedly marches on.

He's dying of thirst, lips peeling like parchment, his throat coated with hot sand. He knows it's a dream, the same way little children know cartoons aren't actually real, but it feels more like reality than any world he's ever lived in, death stalking him like a hungry predator. He's afraid to die in this surreal and beautiful hellscape, so he trudges onward. He'll wake up when he finds water. That's how it always works.

But this time the dream is different. The town he expects to appear on the horizon never materializes. The air shimmers with heat, teasing at the possibility of a mirage, but nothing ever comes. Tears prick at the corners of his eyes, threatening to spill the precious moisture down his cheeks where it can evaporate... wasted.

He drops to his knees, gasping at the raw pain in his throat when he tries to draw breath. Maybe if he collapses on the hot gravel it will finally be over. Maybe he'll see their faces again, Jane's ruby red lips quirking up in a crooked smile, Andrea gazing at him like he has the key to her heart.

He crawls onward. He knows he doesn't get to pick and choose. If he gives in, it's the terrified expression of surprise in Gale's wide eyes that will bore into him, the angry and murderous glare of Hank that will slice him to shreds as he tries to look away. It's the boy in the desert, the one who never saw it coming, that will walk along beside him tossing out a thousand questions, each one a different way to ask, "Why?"

Jesse collapses, his body flinging to the ground in a pained heap. The air whooshes out of his chest, and he knows it's finally over. He only has to wait for the darkness to descend.

But it doesn't. A firm hand hooks under his arm and turns him over. He stares up into the face of death, craggy with lines, a glinting pair of wire rimmed glasses sitting on the bridge of his nose. Death cradles his head gently, tipping a flask of cool clear water at his lips. Jesse tries to turn away, sputtering when the water gets sucked down his wind-pipe. Death hauls him up, thumping him on the back like an infant. Coughing, he jerks away from his savior, a withering glare all the thanks he's willing to give.

"Jesse, what the hell are you doing out here? This is no place for you."

"Mr. White?"

Jesse doesn't know why he can't call him Walt. The way the older man speaks to him makes him feel like a child, and he reacts accordingly. "Where the hell are we?"

Walter shrugs, reaching up to adjust the worn out pork pie hat, moving the brim to shade his eyes from the blazing sun. The hat isn't black like Jesse remembers, but faded to a washed out gray, the brim curling up like a snarled lip. This isn't Heisenburg, the devil of the american southwest. This is just a sad old man, wasting away in the desert

Walter reaches into his pocket, pulling out a mashed cardboard box. It's Jesse's favorite brand of cigarettes, the slick black label glinting in the harsh light. The last cigarette shakes out into Walter's open palm. He tosses the box into the scrub, gesturing at the scenery around them with the little white cancer stick. "You think they'll nab me for littering?"

"This isn't real. It's a dream."

"What is real, though? That little brain of yours has the amazing ability to manufacture realities within realities. Maybe you're asleep in the soft twin bed of your childhood, glow-in-the-dark stars above you glued to the ceiling. Maybe your parents are asleep down the hall, and your little brother is an infant curled up in the bassinet at the foot of their bed."

Walter stands, abandoning Jesse in the dust. From this angle he's like a Titan looking down on him, the weight of the world resting on his thin shoulders. The sun makes a halo around his head, obliterating all the details of his face.

Jesse just stares into the light. The heat of the sun disappears, sunbeams falling coolly against his skin now, his thirst a mere memory. "What is this place?"

Walter sighs, scraping a match against the striker pad between his fingers. The flame flickers at the end of the cigarette before he puffs at it. He ignores Jesse's question. "Can you believe how many of these things you would need for a big batch of crystal? What a pain in the ass."

Walter puffs on the slim cigarette, drawing in the smoke like it's smooth velvet in his lungs. Clouds of it waft up around his head, curling in the sky to join the fluffy white masses chasing across the expanse.

The cigarette butt flies through the air and lands at Jesse's feet. "This is purgatory. I told you, you shouldn't be here. I made it so you wouldn't have to."

Thunder claps, three times in quick succession, and Walt looks up, squinting in the harsh light. There are no storm clouds on the horizon, miles of blue stretch out before them. The thunder comes again, a quick tattoo this time.

"It's time to leave, Jesse. She's waiting."

* * *

Jesse's eyes snap open, and he's gasping for air in the semi-dark of his bedroom. The dream begins to fade, colorful scraps floating away from him as he tries to grab at it. He doesn't know why he needs to hold it close to him, but he's angry when it slips through his fingers.

Sitting up, he cradles his head in his hands. It would be easy to roll back over, sink back into sleep and chase the dream. It's what he's been doing for the past three days, only crawling out of bed when nature calls. He knows this is a symptom of depression. He's heard people in group therapy talk about it, and yet knowing doesn't change anything. He can't make himself move his limbs, can't get up and face the light of day.

In the past, drugs helped, a quick bump of meth zipping through him like electroshock therapy. It made his body work, if only for a brief interlude. Sometimes he missed the false energy that made his heart beat like a jackhammer, his eyes flicking back and forth as he tried to take everything in. The euphoria... christ, what he wouldn't give to feel something good again.

That's done and over with. He turns over and draws the blanket up over his head to block out the ambient light. Then he hears it, a banging noise muffled by two sets of walls. For a moment he thinks it's thunder, but quickly dispatches the notion. It sounds nothing like thunder. Someone is banging persistently on his front door.

Jesse knows who it is before he flips the locks. She's standing framed in his doorway yet again, this time with a tiny fist raised, ready to continue her racket. She's wearing a puffy coat, goose down lining adding an almost comical mass to her short figure. She smiles up at him, the cap on her head a bright blue knit with tassels hanging down from the ear flaps. She looks like a child, and Jesse's lips twitch in an effort not to laugh at the picture she makes.

"There you are!" She seems exasperated, tucking her hands down into the padded pockets of her coat, blowing out a frustrated breath.

"I live here. Where else would I be?"

"I've been knocking for like fifteen minutes."

"I was asleep."

"It's past noon."

He bristles at her chiding tone, glaring at her. "Do you need something?"

She smiles sweetly, irritation disappearing as quickly as it appeared. "I told you I would stop by to see your progress."

She looks excited, rocking on her heels. In spite of her warm garb, she's cold still, tucking her chin down into her coat as she looks up at him. "You going to invite me in, or...?"

"There's nothing to see."

"Nothing? But it's been three weeks." Disappointment shows in every line of her body, and the expression on her face drops dramatically. This girl doesn't know how to hide anything. She's an open book and it makes Jesse uncomfortable.

He fights the flush of shame that he can feel creeping up his neck. It has been three weeks, and he's been wallowing in self pity for the majority of that time. If it had been the old days, he would have invited a hoard of assholes over to fill the air with noise and life that wasn't his own, so he could languish on the periphery, pretend he was contributing.

He fumbles for an explanation. "Look..." Her name doesn't appear on the tip of his tongue, and he blinks trying to figure out if she's ever even told him what it is.

Her eyes get wide, cheeks turning pink. "Oh my god, I never even told you my name. I was just so determined to get you to say yes and then you did, and then it was the end of the conversation, and I mean... Who makes introductions at the end of a conversation?" She's talking to herself now, babbling self consciously, her gaze dropping down to his sternum. "Of course you didn't ask either, and I don't know your name. We made a business deal and shook on it and everything, but it's not binding if-"

It's a little overwhelming listening to her rattle like this. He's never been a big talker, and it's suddenly like she's taking every word he's ever spoken and trying to say them all at once. He interrupts the barrage. "What is your name?"

Her mouth snaps shut, and she lifts her eyes back to his face. Shyly, she says, "Sarah, with an H. Like 'Sarah Plain and Tall,' although clearly I'm not tall, and I like to think I'm not exactly plain..." She trails off, humor dancing in her eyes. "Please tell me your name so I can stop talking like an idiot."

He hesitates, running through the list of fake names he's tried on along the trip here, but none of them seem to fit. He clears his throat nervously. "It's Jesse."

"Jesse..." She says his name like she's committing it to memory, writing it with indelible ink in her mind. "Like Jesse James, outlaw and bandit extraordinaire."

"Uh, yeah... something like that."

"Well, Jesse, what's the holdup?" She's somehow pushing past him, stepping into what passes for his living room. There is no furniture, just stacks of milled lumber here and there, tools piled in one corner beside his work bench.

He follows behind her, trying to think of some excuse for his sloth. "Look, I don't have the wood I need for your chest… The cedar logs aren't seasoned… it could be months."

She whirls on him, mouth dropped open in shock. "Months? You've got to be kidding me. That's unacceptable."

Jesse sighs, dropping down into the solitary recliner by the door. "Then find someone else."

Ignoring him, she pokes through his things, making her way to the door to his bedroom. Before he can tell her to mind her own business, she's slipping through the door. He rockets off the chair after her, his heart leaping into his throat.

There are stacks of hundred dollar bills, tucked neatly into his nightstand, no attempt to really hide them, and he's certain she'll find them in her snooping. His shirt hits him smack in the face as soon as he crosses the threshold, the soft cotton balled up before she sent it sailing through the air. "Get dressed. We're going to see if Miller Davis has any cedar."

**A/N: I had no idea how delusional I was thinking people would read this... :P... I know, I know... the shows been over for a while. A girl can dream can't she? Comments mean the world, and I really appreciate it when anyone takes the time.**


	3. Chapter 3

The smell of gasoline and oil is just barely noticeable in the spacious cab of Sarah's truck. It's an aroma that Jesse has come to associate with Alaska itself, the big rigs he'd met along the road sending plumes of exhaust out behind them. It's what his hands smell like after a long day of trekking through the woods, chainsaw at his side. He doesn't find it unpleasant at all, as faint as it is.

Lost in thought, the sound of the engine fills his ears. She's kind of a terror on the road, flying across the loose gravel, gunning it through rough patches where torrential rains have washed out the compact dirt. They hit a particularly deep pothole, and Jesse scrambles for the grab handle, cursing under his breath.

He had tried, and failed, to keep track of where they were going. Up until now he only memorized the short stretch of road between his cabin and the poorly paved streets of the village. Not knowing where the hell he is puts him on edge. The roads here seemed to branch off like little tributaries every couple miles, and every time she takes a sharp turn off the road they're on he gets a little more tense.

"How much farther is it?"

She takes her eyes off the road for a second, just long enough to flash him a bright smile. "Only a couple more miles. The road gets kind of bad, so it'll be a little slower."

"It  _gets_  kind of bad? What the hell do you call this?" He gestures toward the expanse in front of them, emphatically pointing at a row of particularly awful washouts.

She bites her bottom lip as she slows down, pressing down on the clutch to downshift. "Um… not that bad?" The truck crawls over the bumpy terrain, and she lets out a pleased grunt. "See."

Jesse doesn't see anything, except more trees and dirt. He has no idea why he agreed to come with her. He'd rather be wallowing in his own misery. There's a kind of satisfaction he gets from it, a zip of righteousness coursing through him when he's alone and miserable. This is different. This is a bone rattling ride to a destination he isn't sure of, a ball of unrelenting sunshine behind the wheel.

Jesse's grumpy silence has little effect on Sarah's mood. She turns the knob on the radio for the millionth time, twisting her lips just so, as though by some kind of facial magic she will finally get something other than static playing through the speakers. Flipping the switch back, she sighed. "Miller Davis is in my top five."

Jesse blinks, looking back at her. Her what? He's starting to understand her mode of conversation, throwing random quips at him when he gets sullen. She waits for him to ask, wiggling around on the cushion she uses so she can see over the steering wheel. Impatient, she takes her eyes off the road again, this time looking at him with raised eyebrows.

He takes the bait. "Top five?"

Nodding, she fills him in. "All of the men in this part of Alaska, the ones that I know anyway, are on this list I keep in my head. Number one is the most ideal candidate for marriage, number two is second most ideal… you get it."

He sighs, face falling. How the hell is she back to talking about this again? His head hits the rest behind him with a muffled thump, eyes closing as he settles into listen to some bizarre ranking system. She doesn't continue though, and the quiet nestles around him awkwardly.

He waits, and waits, until finally she does say something, small and quiet. "You don't care."

The hurt in her voice is surprising. Of course he doesn't give a shit about this, what the hell did she expect? And yet, he wants nothing more than to assure her that he finds it fascinating. It's not an impulse he's used to. "Um well…"

"Oh my god, I'm sorry. This is so stupid. I just hate silence, and I fill it with babbling about stupid things no one cares about. You're just so quiet, and it unnerves me."

She is jittery, her hands batting away a strand of hair from her face, then fluttering to the gear shift to trace the numbers on the knob. Then she bites down on her lip yet again. He hates it when she does that, because his eyes can't help but follow the motion, and it's both alluring and vulnerable. Her nervous energy echoes within him, and he feels twitchy in a way that he hasn't felt in a long time. He scrambles to say something that will help. "Well, who's number one then?"

She smiles, relief relaxing the set of her shoulders. "That would be Devon Carmichael the third, oil tycoon and most eligible bachelor in the tri-county area. He has a lodge up on the ridge overlooking the town, but only visits a few times a year, so it's unlikely we'll ever meet." She gives him a dramatic sigh of disappointment. "The number one slot is never realistic, you see, but number five… that's a definite possibility. Miller is attractive and financially stable, and a nice guy all around, but he's something of a hermit and a little older than me. So… those things knock him down to five."

"You think about this a lot?"

She nods. "There's not much else to do up here, especially in the winter months. I work at the mercantile in town, but some days I only have like three customers."

"So… this is just an excuse for you to pay a visit to this Davis guy?" He doesn't know why, but he's a little disappointed. He can see that she's just naturally effervescent, that her smiles aren't reserved for anyone in particular, but it's hard to ignore the way she pulls him out of himself, out of the circular thoughts that make him wish that Walt hadn't actually saved his life in the end.

She does have the self-awareness to be slightly embarrassed by this, but she can't stifle the little grin on her face. "Sort of, yeah…"

"Thanks a lot for dragging me up here with you. I so appreciate it, maybe Miller Davis will ask for  _my_  hand in marriage."

His words are dripping with sarcasm, little poison darts riding along the eddies of air. She deflects them with a tinkling laugh. "Let's hope not, I'd hate to have to take you out."

Jesse snorts out a laugh. The idea of her taking him out is so ludicrous he almost wants to cry. She's the human embodiment of innocence, and he feels like the embodiment of evil, a dark cloud just waiting to consume her. The juxtaposition makes him feel borderline hysterical, and he blurts out the first thing that comes into his mind, just to bat away this feeling. "So, where do I rank?"

Her mouth drops open with a little squeak of surprise, but she keeps her eyes on the road. "Um, it's hard to say. I don't really know you."

"Take a stab at it anyway."

"Ok, well, you're young, so that's a plus, and from the gossip around town you seem to be independently wealthy, so again, a plus." She swallows, hands gripping the steering wheel as she concentrates on the road. "Although, I'm not sure if that second one is true, since you've been wearing the same shirt every time I've ever seen you, so maybe it's not a plus."

Jesse watches her flex her fingers against the hard plastic, amused by the thought she's putting into it. She continues. "You're really secretive and silent, so that's probably a minus. God knows what kind of skeletons are in your closet.  _But_  you have really pretty eyes, so that kind of cancels that out, you know?"

Jesse regrets this line of conversation. He has more skeletons in his closet than she could possibly imagine. There's a whole skeleton army in there just banging at the door waiting to get out. He clears his throat. "Trust me, it doesn't cancel it out."

* * *

Miller Davis's place is beautiful. Jesse can see white capped mountains off in the distance, and the icy gray water of the ocean laps at the foot of the property. A dinghy tied to a short little pier bobs gently. He hangs back as Sarah hops excitedly up the walkway, flat paving stones set out in a curling path under her feet.

The truck is cold against his back as he leans on it. The smoke from his cigarette pools inside his cupped palm where he holds it inverted, safe from the wind here. He takes another drag from it and squints as Sarah takes the steps as fast as her little feet can take her.

The house itself is a grandiose thing, a stunning combination of rough hewn logs and intricate masonry. Jesse wonders how long it takes someone to develop the skill needed to stack rocks like puzzle pieces. He's surprised when a short man opens the door, faint whispers of gray threading through the hair at his temples.

The man hugs Sarah, patting her on the back familiarly before they pull apart. It's a strange sensation to watch two people talking about him, and not be able to hear what they're saying. Sarah turns in Jesse's direction, pulling one hand out of a goose down pocket to point at him. He can see how she bounces on her heels with excitement when Davis nods.

Jesse drops the cigarette, crushing it under the heel of his boot before pushing off the truck. He's never really had good instincts about people, but there's something he doesn't like about this Miller Davis, something he can't quite put his finger on. He glances down at the dinghy in the water one last time, watching as the waves get stronger. He'll get the cedar, and he'll get the hell out of here. Maybe Sarah will leave him alone for a few more weeks.


End file.
